Mama Dora’s BBQ Sauce (5/5)

Warning, I have a rant to let out. Far too often I get sent sauce with a name and no picture of the person. Let’s see, just recently I’ve had:

Bo Macks

Porky Joe’s

Ruble Family

Zurrell’s

Uncle Kenny’s

Head’s Red

and many others

They are all good sauces… but no pictures! I think when you name a sauce or a product after a person, people want to see that person represented. Anything. A picture or a cartoon or a stick figure will do! Let’s say you name your sauce Wild and Crazy Hawk. What are you going to do. All white label with a black and white font? Or maybe a picture of a pig? No. You might match that up with a picture or a cartoon or a drawing of a wild and crazy hawk (I have no idea what that would look like by the way). End rant.

Outside the Bottle

So here’s what Mama Dora Barbecue Sauce did right!! They have a picture of Mama Dora – hooray!!

And they have a rich history. They have been serving it – or something like it – from 1928 to 1965 at the Liberty Cafe in Fort Valley Georgia (now closed). The problem is that the picture – while original and historically accurate – doesn’t give us a quick shot of Mama Dora. I could suggest a few minor touch-ups, however.

The label is set against this dark backdrop:

An amazing picture for sure! While maybe all they really need to do is put a big picture somewhere on the label like this.

Hey. I’m no graphic designer, but I’ve seen a lot of sauce bottles in my day! The label itself beyond that is held back a bit by keeping to this dark, grayscale color tone. I’d brighten it up a bit. Show a close up of Mama Dora. Tell us why it’s great and why the bottle was meant to preserve the memory of what was probably a great woman (if she loved sauce, then she was probably amazing!)

Inside the Bottle

This is a great tasting mustard sauce.

It has a deep rich flavor provided by a combination of mustard, Worcestershire sauce, Louisiana-style hot sauce, and various other spices like garlic, onion, and crushed pepper – which you can see from outside the bottle floating around the dark yellow/brown base. The sauce flows a bit thin but holds well to meat products. The sugar and carbs count is lower than traditional BBQ sauces for you Atkins, South Beach, Paleo, carb-avoiding diet types although it does add high fructose corn syrup for those of you who want to know. Did I mention it tastes great. Not only does it have the vinegary tang flavor that I like in a mustard BBQ sauce, it’s also got a trace of heat and and it’s not so sweet – unlike some mustard sauces that taste a bit too much like honey-mustard salad dressing. Eww. The extra complexity from the Worcestershire sauce also kicks this to a new dimension giving you a little extra savory tart kick – what some foodie refer to as umami. I couldn’t stop eating it once I had a small taste.

Bottom Line:

I went back and forth on this one and it was so close. While I’d love a label touchup and to see it be a little thicker and have no HFCS, it was simply too tasty to give it anything other than a 5 star rating. Way to go, Mama!